OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Weston McKennie out three weeks with shoulder injury

While we await the major injury news that has been hanging over Juventus’ midfield for over a week now, the club has officially diagnoses the lesser of the two injuries.

Juventus announced Monday that midfielder Weston McKennie will miss at least the next three weeks with a dislocated left shoulder injury that he suffered mere hours before the final friendly of the United States tour over the weekend against Real Madrid. With a three-week absence at minimum, McKennie will miss Juventus’ Aug. 15 season opener against Sassuolo and could very well miss the Aug. 22 matchup against Sampdoria if his rehab time is extended any further.

Also Monday, Juve announced that winger Marley Aké will miss two months after suffering a compound fracture of the third distal of the right fibula, an injury he suffered all of a couple minutes after coming on in the loss to Real Madrid.

The details of the injuries from Juventus’ official website:

Weston McKennie underwent radiological examinations at J | Medical this morning, which revealed a capsular lesion of the left shoulder. The player will begin rehabilitation, three weeks’ differentiated work will be required.

Marley Aké also underwent radiological examinations this morning at J | Medical, which revealed a compound fracture of the third distal of the right fibula and it will take about two months for complete recovery.

With McKennie now certainly out for the season opener and Paul Pogba also a lock to miss out on the first month of the season at minimum, Juventus enters the start of the 2022-23 Serie A campaign with quite the roster crunch in the midfield. Thrown in the fact that Arthur is almost certainly leaving and Adrien Rabiot’s status is completely up in the air and you’ve got a situation in which Max Allegri may well be forced to play at least one of the kids during the Sassuolo opener in two weeks.

While it likely won’t mean a lot of missed game time, this is yet another injury setback for McKennie after missing nearly all of the last three months of the 2021-22 season after suffering a broken foot in the first leg of Juve’s forgettable Champions League Round of 16 matchup against Villarreal. The 23-year-old American also dealt with a rib injury during the second half of his first season with Juventus that absolutely zapped him of the run of great form he was in prior to the injury.

But with Pogba out for a still unknown period of time and McKennie out for at least one Serie A fixture, things could get a little interesting in the midfield — which, after the last few years, is not exactly what you want to hear regarding this team.